


Cold Bites Deep

by ALC_Punk



Category: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-13
Updated: 2009-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-27 00:57:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALC_Punk/pseuds/ALC_Punk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, it's the people you meet that can change the shape of the world. (note: I'm a bit iffy on SCC, and I have possibly far too much love for the third movie)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Bites Deep

**Author's Note:**

> Written for user larah33, for (I think?) Femmefic 09. Thanks to Lizardbeth_J for the rush beta job. (Prompt: Which is scarier: meeting the legend, or meeting the mother-in-law? )

It was always cold outside of Chicago--what was left of Chicago, anyway. Kate remembered vacationing there as a small child, the lake biting colder than the air. Her mother had taken her father to task for letting their daughter walk through the silty shallows, she could catch God knew what from the lake water!

Even now, Kate could still hear the worried outrage that had made her roll her eyes as a child. The dramatics hadn't fazed her father in the least, and Kate had gleefully splashed through the shallows until she was blue with cold and wet through. At five, she'd loved new experiences and defying the rules.

At her current age, Kate still enjoyed defying the rules, though she was mostly over new experiences. Especially the ones which left her planet a nuclear wasteland with machines hunting the human survivors.

The cold in the air bit into her bones, the humidity almost clammy against her skin as she slid between bits of cover, silently and carefully.

She'd had an escort at the start of her journey, one of the newer recruits. John had insisted that everyone get used to recruit and recon duties. No one was unexpendable, and the sooner they all knew each others' jobs, the better. He hadn't said she had to keep Jane Braddock at her back for the whole mission, and they'd cover more ground separately, so she'd sent her to canvas the other side of the city.

Most of the machines patrolled further south, where humans were more likely to gather. The cold was a factor in their favor in keeping the population down. Kate hated herself that she could think that logically, even now. But years of surviving had left her with little of her early optimism.

They were having children in their underground bunkers, squalling infants that stayed alive through sheer evolutionary dominance. But no one was there to teach those children how to do more than read at a rudimentary level and figure just enough to never run out of ammunition in a firefight. There were no art history professors, or philosophy majors to tell them that the human race might turn into something far more primitive before it crawled out on top again.

Perhaps that was for the best, in the end. Paper was scarce, and save for a few, books were mostly useful as kindling.

There were things written in stone, things that had happened and would happen that she could never change. Whether the children around her could read and think like adults didn't really matter.

Someone might judge her one day, call her to account for her actions. But that day would be a long way off.

Until then, there was only survival; keeping her people alive at all costs, and something very much like revenge against the machines that had caused the destruction of the human race.

A sound made her stiffen and drop into a crouch, her shoulders tensing. Her fingers automatically shifted, flicking the safety off. Sometimes it was that one second of preparation that saved your life, after all.

Movement to her right pulled her eyes and aim around.

There was nothing for a moment and then the movement resolved into a figure in grey and black, a dog sitting at her feet.

Kate swallowed a sudden surge of fear, and wondered for a moment how her guard had been so low that the woman had practically snuck up on her. If she had wanted Kate dead...

"Don't move," the woman suggested, her voice husky and low. There was a flavor to the accent that didn't quite belong to the twisted metal and melted concrete of their shared landscape. Perhaps she wasn't from the Midwest.

Kate licked her lips. "I'm not here to harm you." Always start with the basics. Besides, it was the truth, as much as it could be.

"Perhaps." Something like a smile flashed across the space to Kate. "Let's just make sure that's true." Her hands were wrapped around a gun rather suddenly. Kate hadn't even seen her move to draw it.

"How?"

"Trigger."

The dog moved, sniffing across the space between them and following his nose, paws delicately placed as he walked towards Kate, carefully avoiding the sharp edges of the rubble beneath his feet with ease. He stopped just out of touching range and sniffed at her again.

For an endless moment, Kate had the wild thought that she was a machine in disguise and didn't even realize it before the dog gave a disinterested growl and turned away.

She let out the breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, and her voice was too breathy when she said, "Do I pass?"

"That test," confirmed the other woman. She holstered her gun and gave Kate a speculative look. "Who are you?"

"I should ask you the same." There was merely silence, and Kate shrugged, "My name is Kate. I'm part of a group of survivors, and we're always looking for more--especially dogs."

The children thought the dogs were for them, laughing as they chased them down cramped hallways in tiny underground shelters.

It was a gamble, offering even that much--but a dog went a long way to proving the woman was human. Too, she could have killed Kate, but she hadn't.

Maybe she still would.

John would have called her foolhardy, but she'd been right to trust her instincts with people before--more-so than he ever had. His complaints would have been so much whining.

"Trust easily, do you?" There was a mixture of surprise and scorn in the unknown woman's voice. 

Yes, she did. Humanity was going to need all the help it could get. And besides, the dog was still sitting at the woman's feet. That had to count for something, and Kate wasn't beyond a little fallible humanity of her own. "No."

"Really."

"You got a name?" Kate asked. When the woman merely smiled, she shrugged, "I could call you Lucy--I'd go for Jane, but we already have a few and that could get confusing."

"Sarah."

"Well, Sarah, I figure you have two options. One," Kate held up a finger as she moved closer, keeping an eye on the dog, "You continue skulking around near the great lakes until the machines find and kill you. Two, you join up with us and maybe take some of 'em down before you die."

Closer, there was something eerily familiar about the woman. The children in the compound would have called her creepy--Sarah looked as though she'd seen one too many hells.

"And what if I told you there was a third option, Kate Brewster?"

"There are no--" Kate swallowed, her last name like a moment out of joint. A punch in the gut she wasn't expecting.

"The future isn't always written--all of this--"

"We've tried that--I've--" Five years to go, five years before she'll bury John and reprogram his killer. "It doesn't work. The past is set and the future has been written. I've seen it."

"Have you?"

It shouldn't matter that the woman's name was Sarah. There were hundreds, thousands (once, millions) of Sarahs. But for just a moment, Kate found herself believing there could be a way, there could be a change.

That the future wasn't supposed to be set in stone.

"What did you say your last name was?"

"I didn't," Sarah smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Are you sure you want to know?"

That sense of familiarity was too much, and Kate shook her head, swallowing against something that couldn't be true. "Sarah Connor is dead," she gasped.

"Not yet," Sarah said. 

"I don't believe you." It was insane to even consider it. 

"Don't you?"

John had said, once, that his mother could compel anyone to believe her without half trying. And it was impossible that this was his mother. Sarah Connor was dead, buried in an unmarked grave, her body ravaged with cancer.

"We can change this, Kate. I just need your help."

It was impossible. Completely. She would outlive John, and the machines... "This isn't real. You're--"

Movement, the sound of metal on concrete pulled Sarah's attention towards the south end of the mess of stone and glass. The dog at her feet began to growl. "No more time, Kate. Come with me if you want my son to live."

Nothing could be that simple. Kate could see the hunter-killers in the distance, swarming closer now they'd spotted something of interest. She spared a thought for Braddock, but figured she'd be all right on her own. It wasn't like she could baby-sit her forever. Besides, there were more immediate concerns right in front of her. She pulled her gun from its holster, then looked at Sarah. "What do I have to do?"

"Not you. We."

Winning against the machines might be impossible, might be an uphill battle they would never win. But Kate would trade John's certain death for something like hope.

The night flared around them and then vanished.


End file.
